


Just Another Horror

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-22 12:24:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22563376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Hiding behind a pair of sunglasses and the fact that everyone thinks she’s dead, Abigail goes with Hannibal to see the outside of the Baltimore Institute for the Criminally Insane, where Will Graham is being imprisoned. She doesn’t understand why Hannibal doesn’t simply carry Will off. Hannibal explains why, even though there have been times when he's been tempted to do just that.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Just Another Horror

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during the second season while Will is institutionalized. I don’t own Hannibal, but for the last several months, it has owned me.

Abigail peeked over the lenses of her sunglasses. Perhaps she was tempting fate, but she wanted to see the Baltimore Institute for the Criminally Insane. 

Hannibal didn’t argue. He drove her over, parking from a safe distance where she could see its looming gray walls. 

“I guess this is just another horror in the life of Will Graham.” Something tightened in her throat at the thought of him within that squatting monstrosity, behind bars for something he didn’t do. It wasn’t any worse than seeing Marisa mounted on a wall, pierced with antlers or talking to any of the girls she knew her father would later stalk and kill. It was just another horror in the life of Abigail Hobbs as well. 

Why did this one in particular bother her?

“Kept in the dark by the very people he risked his fragile sanity for over and over, away from his dogs and anything which might comfort him, subject to the fumbling attentions of a psychiatrist who can never truly savor what’s fallen into his greedy little hands.” Hannibal kept his voice even, but Abigail heard the anger tingling in every single word. 

What was happening to Will Graham wasn’t just another horror to Hannibal Lecter, even if he’d been the one who’d orchestrated it.  


“I don’t know why you don’t simply break in and carry Will off.” Abigail glanced over at Hannibal. “You carried off Miriam Lass. You’re keeping her still. Why not Will?” 

“There may be no need.” Hannibal didn’t meet Abigail’s gaze. He turned his own towards the walls of the institute, as if he could peer past layer and layer of stone and metal, finding the flesh lying within, the souls trapped inside. One soul in particular. “He may come to us willingly, if we wait.”

“If we wait, the forces of law and order may kill him,” Abigail retorted. “Besides, Will is still part of those forces, remember? He freaked when he found out what I’d done.” It still hurt. Underneath the fear she’d felt, fleeing from Will, a secret part of her hoped Will Graham would understand and accept her, forgiving her for the part she’d played in her father’s murders. Maybe this was why she’d accepted Hannibal’s plan to fake her death, framing Will for her murder in order to survive. Survival had always been important, but one could only survive for so long. 

“No less than he has over what I have done.” Hannibal turned at her with a grave expression. “As you say, Abigail, Will Graham is part of the F.B.I. Right now he belongs to Jack Crawford as much as he does to us.” He reached out to brush a stray strand of hair which had fallen over her forehead. “Will needs to see what they’re capable of doing to him, both Jack and the people who command Jack, when he’s at their mercy. This way he’ll become aware of what they’ll do to us, should they ever catch us.”

“Those people are going to kill him.” Abigail swallowed the lump, which was thickening in her throat. “He’s going to die for what we did.”

“No, he’s not.” Hannibal turned his attention back to the walls. “If necessary, I will start slaughtering people and carry Will off before that happens.” 

Grief and anger mingled in each word, lacing them with a guilt and longing that equalled hers, no. Surpassed it. 

“Do you regret what you did to him?” Abigail gazed at Hannibal’s face, the way his full lips thinned, the genuine sorrow and anger glinting in his dark eyes. “You sacrificed him for me, framed him for my murder, so everyone would think I was dead.”

“He would have wanted it this way.” Hannibal tightened his hands on the wheel. “Given a choice between you suffering and suffering himself, he’d choose this.”

“What about what you’d choose?” Abigail cocked her head, not sure if her new ‘father’ would answer truthfully. 

Hannibal paused for a moment, still staring at the institution. “There was a moment when I was driving Will to Minnesota. He was sleeping in the car, trusting in me completely to take him where he wanted to go. I thought about driving away with him, snatching him from the hands of the law. I thought about driving him to the house on the cliffs, to you instead.”

“Why didn’t you?” Abigail cocked her head. “Surely you could have faked his death as you did mine.”

“It was too soon. He’s still Jack’s man as much as he is mine.” Hannibal closed his eyes. “Besides it’s better if he figures out things for himself. What Jack Crawford is capable of, and how much the less justly minded in the F.B.I, such as Kade Purnell will force Jack to do to Will and to us, if we’re caught.”

“I wish you’d slaughter Kade Purnell.” Abigail scowled at the thought of what she’d seen of the woman on television, of what Hannibal had told her of Jack Crawford’s superior. “I can’t believe how hung up on appearances she is. Why Dr. Bloom helps someone like her, I’ll never know.”

“Dr. Bloom holds onto the ideals that Will no longer can. Justice is one of them. Tidiness and order are Kade Purnell’s ideals.” Hannibal smiled, just a little. “Dying might be a more merciful fate than being forced to clean up a mess.”

Abigail shook her head at the very notion. “I still wonder if the world wouldn’t be a better place if you just ate her brain.”

“If you truly wish to, it could be arranged.” A hint of that menace lying beneath Hannibal’s soft-spoken facade rose to the surface. “We shall simply have to wait and see how this plays out.”

Abigail tried not to shiver and failed. This was just one more reminder that her new ‘father’ was no less dangerous than her biological one. His loving attention was no less dangerous. The full focus of it was simply directed at someone else. 

Perhaps one day Will would find himself facing the choice of killing young men like himself, or feeding Hannibal’s appetite. Would he refuse, taking the martyr’s way out? Or would he do what he had to, to survive?

Abigail wasn’t sure she wanted to see that happen. Will being sacrificed or surviving. Perhaps leaving him in the hands of the law was best for Will. 

Only she was no longer sure if justice applied to the innocent any more than it did to the guilty. Otherwise Miriam Lass wouldn’t be laying in the house on the bluff, unsure of whom she was or whom Abigail was, tormented by the thought of actions she’d never committed. Otherwise Will wouldn’t be where he was now. 

Perhaps there were no safe places. Not once you’d reached out into the darkness and it reached out in turn, only to call out your name. 

The darkness knew Abigail now. It was getting to know Will intimately. 

Perhaps Hannibal was the only way out for both of them. Yes, he was part of the darkness, but perhaps that made him the ideal guide. 

For her sake and Will’s, she hoped so.


End file.
